Air Force promotes literacy among school age children

Reading a book is a reward in and of itself, but that does not always persuade children to read. To help promote literacy, the Air Force Personnel Center is sponsoring an incentive reading program until March 7.

The One Page at a Time program is open to youth agesÊ5 through 13 years, who are eligible to use force support squadron facilities.

This program is designed to drive youths to read books, document their literary accomplishments, and earn incentives for each level of their literary successes.

"We want to establish a lifetime desire to read with this program," said Sally Petergal, an Air Force Personnel Center child and youth specialist. "We view literacy as being very important and with this program we open the door for children to develop better reading skills. Even though the program is at the halfway mark, families can still sign up for the program."

To participate, families should visit their installation's youth programs or library.

Following registration, children may create their own book lists from required reading lists at school, their installation's library, or from a list of 15,000 suggested titles at www.afyouthprograms.com.

Once the child reads a book, they should have their parent, teacher or mentor sign their registration and reading log to document the child's accomplishment.

At the conclusion of the program, the incentive form and the results report should be submitted to youth programs no later than Mar. 12, 2014.

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"Children can earn rewards such as a light-up pen, book light and a backpack depending on the number of books they read," Petergal said. "While this program helps promote literacy we just want children to have fun."